As a young guy, he was tough on crime. It was one of the ways he built his reputation.

President George H.W. Bush came to Connecticut and said this about him: "He's tough on crime. He's been a strong supporter of our comprehensive crime bill, a bill that's been stalled and sabotaged by the liberal Democrats in the Congress for the past 16 months. He and I agree … we can't put criminals behind bars if we handcuff our law enforcement officers."

He ran his campaigns that way. "The reality in Connecticut is that we're coddling our prisoners," he said in 1994.

By 1995, he was governor, and he rolled out a series of tough-on-crime proposals. He fired the corrections chief he had blamed for the coddling and replaced him with a guy name John Armstrong. He and Armstrong lifted the cap on prison population so Connecticut could have more prisoners and keep them longer. Standing by his side at the announcement, Amstrong said, "Certainly we want to send the message to criminals, 'There's always room at the inn.'"

But then things turned ugly. Hundreds of Connecticut prisoners were transferred to Wallens Ridge, a hellish Virginia supermax, where the guards were almost all white and notoriously tough, where violence and rubber bullets were the norm.

A 50-year-old inmate from Connecticut named Larry Frazier struggled with the guards one day in 2000. He went into a diabetic coma. They hit him with 50,000 volts from a stun weapon. They left him alone, strapped down and bleeding from the mouth. He slipped into a coma and died. So did David Tracy, a scared, skinny kid with a history of mental problems. He hanged himself in his cell. The Walllens Ridge guards let him dangle for three or four minutes while they got organized to go in.

Amnesty International tried to visit Wallens Ridge. They were turned away.

The governor, who was tough on crime, pushed through a plan in 2003 to quintuple the number of these prisoners being farmed out of state.

Sometimes history repeats itself; in former Gov. John G. Rowland's case it reversed itself. The apple fell a long way from the tree. He was sentenced Wednesday to prison for the second time. It seems appropriate to recall that there was a Rowland who gained fame for being on the right side of the...

(TERENCE MARIANI | OP-ED)

In 2002, the women's prison in Niantic was beset with reports of male guards sexually harassing prisoners and female employees. This wasn't a big problem for the governor. His biggest critic, East Haven state Rep. Mike Lawlor, said the sex abuse "doesn't fall into the category of tough on crime, so it's not taken as seriously by the current administration." Amnesty International repeatedly singled out that prison, York Correctional, as a place with an epidemic of sexual mistreatment of female prisoners.

Tough on crime. Suddenly, in 2004, that wasn't such a good idea for Gov. John Rowland, because the feds were getting tough on his crimes. By 2005, he was federal inmate No. 15623-014. On Wednesday, he was being sentenced for a new set of crimes, and his wife told the court that the experience of being prosecuted was punishment enough. "This process has taken a toll. My hope is that you believe this is enough," she told the court.

The court didn't think so. The judge is tough on crime, so Rowland got 30 months. Out in the hall, his wife told the prosecutor — a guy who seems to be tough on crime — to "burn in hell." She did not express this sentiment in verse, the way she did in December 2003 when, with the hounds of impeachment and prosecution baying, she read a doggerelized version of "A Visit from St. Nicholas" which mocked the press for daring to question the Rowlands.

I would feel bad for a lot of 57-year-old men headed for a long stretch in prison. Sure it's Otisville, the prison Bernie Madoff asked for, the one with bocce and horseshoes and tennis. He's not going to see anybody get shocked to death.

Still, I would feel bad for a guy who missed family weddings and the birth of grandkids and got out at age 60 which, I can attest, is no 57.

But not this guy. He wanted hard time for everybody else. He didn't care if your kids took a 16-hour bus ride to Virginia to see you or if the male guards fondled the women. So, as they say, there's room at the inn.

Colin McEnroe appears from 1 to 2 p.m. weekdays on WNPR-FM (90.5) and blogs at courantblogs.com/colin-mcenroe. He can be reached at Colin@wnpr.org.